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PA - Myrtle McGill, 76, murdered, Indiana, 7 Dec 1991 *Arrest*

In my hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania (hometown of Jimmy Stewart), there was a murder in December of 1991 that was never solved; there are very few hints of it on the Internet, and I thought I would document what little I know here.

The body of Myrtle McGill, aged 76, was found in her home at 907 South 6th Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The cause of death was gunshot wound- I believe .22 caliber- three rounds fired through the kitchen window of her home. The body was not found until the 13th of December after concerned neighbors noticed mail piling up and nobody responded to phone calls.

Her car was stolen, and recovered at a Pittsburgh bus station on the 9th of December. No fingerprints were recovered.

He also recalled the Jack Davis case -- the Indiana University of Pennsylvania student found dead in a stairwell -- and the recent book that was published on the incident; the Myrtle McGill murder on South Sixth Street, that is still unsolved, which he stated is still a significant case; and the Robert Fortunato standoff on New Year's Eve 1992 on Church Street, where the man was eventually slain by members of a SWAT team from Greensburg.

Oddly, for being a "significant case," there is virtually nothing about the McGill murder on the Internet.

It has been one year since an unknown gunman stood outside Myrtle Louise McGiU's Indiana home and fired three shots through her window. Days later her body was found near her kitchen sink by county detectives. Homicide investigators realize the deck is stacked against them. Each day that passes decreases the chances the crime will ever be solved, but they grimly continue to follow any available lead. "Statistically  according to the FBI  after 72 hours the chances of solving a homicide drop below 50 percent, and then continue to decline from there," state police Sgt. Sid Simon at the Indiana station said this week.

As tough as the McGill murder case is, local homicide detectives are struggling with even more puzzling cases. At least five Indiana County murders  involving the violent deaths of three men and two women dating back to the early 1970s  remain unsolved. In some instances the investigating officers have retired. In one case even the scene of the crime no longer exists. But in each case a gnawing, troubling uncertainty remains for the officers and the families and friends of the victims.

Indiana, Dec. 14,1991  Responding to a friend's concerns that Myrtle McGill has not been answering her telephone, county detectives drive to her 907 South 6th St. home. They discover the well-known 76- year-old woman lying on her kitchen floor. She had been struck by two of three bullets fired through a kitchen window. The same day a certified letter arrived at the McGill home from a Pittsburgh towing company, indicating her 1982 Ford LTD had been towed from Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh near the Greyhound bus station. The letter said the car had been impounded Dec. 9five days before her body was discovered.

Sgt. Simon said recently investigators still believe McGill's murderer shot her on or about Dec. 7 or 8,1991, then fled in her car to Pittsburgh. No usable fingerprints were Found in the auto, and little inside the home was disturbed to suggest the gunman entered the house, except perhaps to take the car keys, Simon said. There is no statue of limitations in homicide investigations, and Simon said the McGill case will remain active until any possible culprit who might have committed the crime is presumed to be deceased. In other words, if McGill's killer was a teenager, the murderer conceivably could still be alive well into the middle of the 21st century. A break in the McGill murder is now most likely to come in one of two ways. Someone who knows something about the slaying may eventually be overcome by a guilty conscience and will confess, Simon said, or someone who has information on the case will be arrested for will offer police information on the McGill murder as part of a plea bargain. The other possibility, Simon said, is that the murder weapon will surface, possibly at another crime scene, and will be matched baistically to the three .22 caliber bullets recovered from McGill's body and her home.

It is worth noting that the McGill family owned McGill Car World (used to be McGill Motors). The current owner purchased it from Lewis McGill in 1973. Mrs. McGill was well known in Indiana and, IIRC, a widow. I can't think of a reason why anyone would conceivably want her dead.

Having spent 24 years of my life in Indiana County- a part of the country with pretenses of being the idyllic birthplace of Jimmy Stewart, replete with an "It's a wonderful life" Christmas celebration- it is little wonder that this story hasn't been given due attention: bad news doesn't sell there. I doubt the case will ever be solved, but it deserves documentation on the web.

Thanks TT. I would guess that since she was shot through a window that the weapon was most likely a .22 rifle. Has that been determined? I would think that a .22 rifle would be something a teenage boy would have. Were there any strange teenage males around town at the time or did any resident young males leave town around that time for unexplained reasons?

This my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, that is, if I'm not joking.

Thank you for this information! I hope and pray (along with all of you) that more cold cases can be solved.

for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes. ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Charles Cook, who has served prison terms in six states, is being held in jail in Minnesota on unrelated local charges of terrorist threats and assault. He is challenging extradition to Pennsylvania.

A registered sexual predator in Illinois for a rape conviction in Washington state in 1999, Cook was arrested in connection with four criminal cases in Decatur between 2009 and 2014. Court records showed he was also in Decatur in 2006 and 2008...

A hearing was scheduled Friday afternoon to determine if Cook will be extradited to Pennsylvania. His challenge alleges that he was not in Pennsylvania at the time of the murder.